If postal servants indulged the hope that the vexed question of civil rights and the cognate one of the unfair dismissal of trades-union officials would be included for consideration, Lord Tweedmouth in his opening address made it clear that it was to be tabooed. There was naturally some disappointment manifested over this, and one of the witnesses for the Fawcett Association, E. J. Nevill, gallantly tried by a manœuvre to get it discussed. Lord Tweedmouth sternly negatived it, and the Controller of the London postal service, as one of the attorneys for the department, with prompt significance demanded the name of the man who had dared to ask so impertinent a question. It was the presence of this official, and the way in which he was allowed to openly influence the proceedings, which largely served to show the real character of the inquiry, and to weaken the men’s confidence in its ultimate impartiality. The little incident of demanding the name of a lower subordinate witness, and the manner of it, induced the witnesses present, through one of their number, to get a protective guarantee from Lord Tweedmouth that none should suffer in their prospects for speaking openly. That it should have been deemed necessary to seek such a guarantee was suggestive. The presence of all the heads of departments arranged in reserve squadron, and commanded by the Controller of the London postal service and other officials in turn, deprived the inquiry of its strictly impartial character. These officials were allowed to sit apart from ordinary witnesses and immediately behind the Permanent Secretary to the Post-Office, the departmental representative on the committee, to perform attorneys’ work, to make suggestions, provide questions to be put, and to pass written communications innumerable. If Lord Tweedmouth felt ashamed of the unfair latitude allowed in his court, he scarcely betrayed it.